


The Night Before the Morning After

by Anonymississippi



Series: The Chronicles of Das Sound Machine [2]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: After Party, DSM getting famous, F/M, I'll just be over here, Kommieter, World Championships 2012, and those two hilarious leads, fixated on DSM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-07 22:31:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4280364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymississippi/pseuds/Anonymississippi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The International A Capella World Championships, 2012, hosted in watery Amsterdam. How do Kommissar and Pieter celebrate DSM's first international victory?</p>
<p>"She wakes up before he does, after the first night that they sleep together."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Night Before the Morning After

She wakes up before he does, after the first night that they sleep together.

* * *

 

 

The Kommissar is a little groggy, though she’d be loathe to admit it. But the after party had been sensational, the music loud, her excitement overwhelming, the drinks tasty and her comrades kinetic in their joy, darting first toward the open bar and then back around to speak with a reporter, sneaking off into dark corners to feel up a particularly attractive competitor, or sprinting onto the dance floor when the DJ hit the turntables, forcing a screech that sounded suspiciously like, “ _This is my jam!_ ”.

She’d been just this side of tipsy last night, and now, waking up with a strong forearm draped around her nude waist, a leg between her own, and a noticeably lacking pain in her head… well, she knew she couldn’t blame it on the drink.

Pieter could.

He’d been so far gone he’d challenged the hired DJ to a battle and had _won._ He'd stepped down from the platform to raucous applause, DSM chanting _Pieter! Pieter!_

He’d swooped onto the floor and soloed an impromptu “We Are the Champions,” commandeering the dance space with the rest of DSM while the remaining teams took up a respectable vantage on the outskirts of the open ballroom.

He was, as ever, the life of the party.

Kommissar hadn’t joined in. She sipped at her only drink of the night, a light vodka tonic, just to remain on her toes. The amount of press she’d had to face had been unexpected, staggering, questions and answers about the future of DSM too hard to articulate in the light of their first world title.

Their first world title.

DSM had won the International A Capella Championships. Twenty-twelve was looking to be a great year.

She had been studying Pieter, who was whipping his head about like a squirrel on speed. Once he finally locked eyes on her at the bar, she had saluted him, friendly, genuinely, for his exuberant performance.

He grinned, wide and child-like, so happy, _so unbelievably happy_ , and came shuffling towards her through a sea of bodies. He reached out to grab her, to gather her up into his arms; and she allowed it, setting her drink aside and leaning into his body, his black button-up shirt so crisp beneath her nose, his hands so warm at the base of her spine.

“Can you believe it?” he asked in her ear. “This thing you did—”

“ _We_ did—”

“I never could have imagined the scale of it all. Like pyramids. And Stonehenge. And skyscrapers and mountains all wrapped into a present and given to us.”

“I did,” Kommissar answered, pulling back inches and offering a half-smile. “We knew the stakes, and were more than prepared for the competition.”

“But this is a big deal!” he said. “Be happier, Kommissar! Enjoy your victory!”

“Who says I’m not enjoying myself?”

“You are a muddy stick, over here with your lonesomeness and haughty little sneer,” Pieter chided, twirling her in place at the bar. “I’ve seen you having fun and this isn’t it.”

“Someone needs to keep an eye on DSM, Pieter. Should they need a bit of reining in. Minor competitions are one thing, but Worlds...”

“They are adults, Madame Kommissar. You don’t have to sit back like some bump on a log and—”

“Bump on a log?” Kommissar brightened at the odd phrase, and took another sip of her drink. “Have you been looking up American idioms again?”

“Don’t change the subject!” Pieter commanded sloppily, relieving her of her drink and tugging on her wrist. “Come! We will show these amateurs what winners dance like!”

“With synchronized choreography and the precision of a neurosurgeon?” Kommissar asked, allowing herself to be dragged onto the floor.

“I think it okay to be less precise for this dance,” Pieter answered, pointing to cue up the DJ. The song shifted from a distant remixed pop ballad to the familiar techno strains of one of the top hits of the year. Kommissar suppressed an eye roll at the recognition, because _of course, Pieter_.

“DSM!” Kommissar called. Her voice rang through the club like some barge horn echoing over a river.

A chorus of “Jas!” followed instantly.

She was tapping her foot, biting her lip, and staring stubbornly at Pieter all the while.

“Dance off!” she shouted, as the foreign lyrics blasted over the speakers.

_Oppa Gangnam Style… Gangnam Style._

The ranks of DSM assumed their positions, as did various members from the other losing groups. One of the members from the Venezuelan team took it upon herself to act as judge, tapping shoulders of those unable to keep up with Psy’s K-pop choreo and vivacious lyrics. As the competing dancers dwindled with every misstep, Pieter drew closer to Kommissar. She wasn’t even paying attention to the thinning crowd; her head felt bubbly from the few ounces of vodka ingested, high more so on their win and Pieter’s encouragement than any bit of booze. She pulled out the final ‘ride the pony’ move and scrunched up her nose at her dance partner, grinning to the thunderous applause that followed once the DJ let the music wind down.

“And now… _the final four_!!!” the DJ hollered over the microphone.

Kommissar inclined her head at the rest of DSM, Pieter standing beside her.

“What does that—”

“We danced so hard we got to the finals,” Pieter explained, punching the air. "Boom!"

She swiveled her head back and forth and, indeed, the space on the floor had opened up around them, DSM falling into supportive formation behind them, demarcating their leader’s space from the other two remaining dancers. It was like a riff-off gone south, with only two competitors stepping forward from each team.

“I didn’t intend for it to turn into a competition,” Kommissar said soberly. “I was making an attempt at revelry, no thanks to you.”

“What do you think ‘dance-off’ means?” Pieter asked, staring across the open dance space at their now-competitors, a young man and woman from the Australian team. They wasted little time in taking their spots on the floor, wowing the crowd with a lyrical hip-hop number to Maroon 5’s “Payphone.”

Kommissar’s eyes shrank to slits, cataloging each move the pair made. They danced very well together. And while she was a fair dancer, she was a better singer, her and Pieter both. The only dance they’d ever performed without vocals wasn’t even in DSM’s repertoire, instead a piece they’d cobbled together for a talent show back at the conservatory in Cologne. And they’d _won_ , thank God, but their marks had been for showmanship… not technique. In the dimmed lights of the ballroom with the strobes going and the alcohol flowing, perhaps they’d luck out in a similar fashion tonight.

“Pieter,” she turned, sidling closer to her partner. “I think we should do the Argentine tango.”

Pieter’s brows shot up his forehead, and he leaned down closer to her face, bracing a large palm on her shoulder. “Really?” he asked hesitantly, as if it were their special secret to keep. His mouth was very close to her face, his thin lips wet with whiskey shots. “We’ve not performed that in ages, Liesel.”

She scoffed at the use of her name, especially surrounded by her aca-peers.

“Do you remember it?” she asked.

“I can’t forget it, the number of hours you made me practice.”

“Because they’re very good,” she drew even closer and motioned toward the dancing pair. She kept her syllables short, clipped, all business. “And we need to win. To solidify our place at the top, competition-wise.”

“This was supposed to make you have more fun, Liesel,” Pieter whined. “Not feel the need to crunch the didgeridoos.”

“Winning _is_ fun,” Liesel answered. “And it gives my heels more use.”

“I hated your heels when we danced this. You kept stepping on my feet.”

“Just go request the song,” Kommissar commanded, rolling her neck in a stretch, flexing her ankles and shaking out her wrists. She was so happy she’d changed from the mesh of her competition clothing into the black, haltered jumpsuit. Rhinestone collar. Backless. Flowy but professional, with a hint of a slit coming up her thigh. More feminine than her traditional fare, but necessary if they were to pull this off. And Pieter looked perfect. Slacks that showed how trim he was. The black button-up, sleeves rolled to the elbows, tucked in and tight right across his chest, showcasing broad shoulders. They'd get credit for the aesthetics alone, even if the dance ended up being subpar.

Which it wouldn’t.

“And now, the challengeeeeeeeeeeers!!!” the DJ announced, flipping a switch on his system to cue up a spot light.

So much for letting showmanship overshadow technique. They were hardly immune to the gazes of the onlookers with a single beam shining down on them in the crowded club.

“It’s throwback time!” Pieter shouted, assuming a stance and pumping up the chanting members of DSM. After clapping to the initial beats of the song, Pieter abandoned the crowd he’d just spent the last thirty seconds inciting, and then stalked toward where Liesel waited, perfect posture, expression intense, focus sharper than a cleaver. He ambled closer as the lyrics from the first verse of “Toxic” trickled over the loudspeakers.

_Baby can’t you see, I’m calling—_

Liesel stood straight, keeping her spine stiff as a lightening rod, then fell, dramatically, into Pieter’s arms. He caught her, mere inches from the floor, large hands around her waist, her foot hooking behind his ankle as she shifted to sit on his leg, holding her own body weight with the exceptional angle and leverage she’d employed.

_A guy like you, should wear a warning, it’s dangerous, I’m falling_ —

And the dance commenced. They weaved around the perimeter in step, spun tightly, and grabbed each other perhaps a little too hard. It was sweltering under the lights, her head resting in the crook of Pieter’s shoulder as his hips welded to hers in their rocking, her passés and his footwork so meticulous, so close and staggeringly exact, they very well could have been professional ball room dancers.

_Too high, can’t come down—_

It also probably helped that they looked like they wanted to fuck each other right there on the dance floor.

Every time they returned to hold, Pieter would duck his forehead and place his cheek against hers; meanwhile, Liesel arched and twisted, fell against Pieter and spun right into his arms, singing along while taking touching liberties over the man’s pectorals, his biceps, his five o’clock shadowed cheeks. She rolled her body against him and never broke eye contact, only blinking, and then gasping (so that only Pieter noticed) as he slapped a hand to her thigh and drew it over his hip, for no other reason than to do the circular dip. Her back arched in his hands as he allowed her to rotate, slightly inverted, his fingers pinching (inadvertently? on purpose?) her ass in the process.

_You’re toxic, I’m slipping under—_

Because it was all part of the choreography.

And they were going to win.

Win this… this silly little dance off.

A dance off that didn’t mean a damn thing, considering they’d just won the worlds. Just another opportunity for them to show off, to be better than everyone else. To show the competition just how mind-blowingly in sync they were.

_I’m addicted to you—_

And so what if she moved a little closer? Squeezed a little tighter? Hummed the words a little deeper, low in her throat, as she flung her foot over Pieter’s elbow and he pulled her across the floor.

Another spin, another dip, that scintillating little move where she rubbed her foot up and down the inside of his leg, the _caricias,_ when his face moved closer to hers in the dramatic stand-still:

* * *

 

 

_Oh the taste of your lips I’m on a ride—_

 

* * *

 

And he tastes like whiskey and adrenaline, the performance high of thousands of pairs of clapping hands, voices hooting, while she inclines her head and bobs, just slightly, in a controlled bow of professionalism: _danke schön_. But on the inside, she’s burning up.

Because Pieter’s kissing her; however briefly, but not at all chaste, with his fingers splayed to either side of her head, tilting it back so that she has to arch into him to keep balance. And she hears a muffled screaming, whistles and cat calls, the beat of the relentless music filtering in between Pieter’s fingers. There’s more to the routine, just a little bit, but she’s less concerned with finishing the dance than with getting her tongue in his mouth and his hands back on her ass, his knee between her legs.

But Pieter cuts off abruptly and his hands fall, one back to the dip of her waist, another desperately searching for its partner to return her to hold. Stunned and _this close_ to reeling away, she lets him lead, follows him, zombie-like, in unpracticed movements of which she has no prior knowledge.

_Intoxicate me now, with your lovin’ now, I think I’m ready—_

And they don’t break eye contact as the music fades to soundlessness. They just slide in a tight hold, in close little movements with guarded looks and shallow breathing until they finish in a final pose, where Pieter succumbs to the sliver of awkwardness, and closes his eyes. They stand for two solid seconds in the quiet before the room erupts like Vesuvius, an explosion of cheers and rattling furniture, cocktail glasses clinking and the recurrent _DSM!_ chants picking up from somewhere off to their left.

And Liesel doesn’t really register it all. She just allows herself to be unraveled, spun away from Pieter so that she can put her performance face back on, so that she can bow, as Pieter nods his head toward her. She presents Pieter in return to the masses, claps for his recognition, and is not at all surprised when the Venezuelan woman materializes and clasps her hand, drawing her arm skyward and ceremoniously declaring her and Pieter the victors of their little dance-off.

* * *

 

Thirty seconds later, and it’s as if their little tangoing interlude had never happened: club music pumped once more from the speakers, drinks flowed liberally, and the dance floor morphed into a blob of interconnected limbs and gyrating lower halves. Pieter had disappeared while the Kommissar (back to title in light of a win) made the obligatory rounds with DSM, tempering the enthusiasm for a number “hotter than hell” that would “melt the judges’ faces/ovaries next year!”

She finally found Pieter at the bar, one elbow propped leisurely in place, the tumbler before him dry as a desert.

“Look, I told you, it’s not like that,” she heard him say to the bartender.

The young man behind the counter raised skeptical eyebrows while the Kommissar moved closer. “Piece of ass like that? You were eye-fucking her the whole time, no way you haven’t hit that on the road at least once—”

“Watch it,” Pieter said, extending a threatening pointer in his direction. “I—!” but he stalled, shook his head, and slid the empty glass across the table. “I am suddenly not very thirsty anymore. Good night, keeper of the alcohols.”

Kommissar intercepted Pieter on his way to the exit.

“Can I see you for a moment?” Kommissar asked, falling into step beside him. “I wanted to check and see if you spoke with the loading company for the sound equipment.”

“What?” Pieter asked, surprised at her appearance beside his elbow. She stood no closer than normal, spoke without a hitch in her voice, and matched him step for step. Nothing strange. Nothing different. “Yes, I…” he shook his head to recover. “I’ve got the memo back at the hotel.”

“Let’s go review it,” Kommissar said. “They’ll be finishing here soon enough, and we have a lot to get through before check-out tomorrow.”

“Ja, okay,” Pieter answered, following dutifully behind her as she led the way from the club reserved for the after party.

They walked the small distance from the club to the hotel, crisscrossing bridges and marveling just a bit at the houseboats bobbing buoy-like in the Amstel river. They’d not gotten to tour much of Amsterdam because of performance prep. Perhaps when DSM went on break, she’d be able to make a special trip back and play tourist.

Perhaps she could ask Pieter to accompany her.

Pieter opened the door and allowed her to move into the lobby area first. She’d already mashed the button for the elevator by the time he joined her.

“I spoke with Floris after we finished packing up at the venue,” Pieter explained. “He said all of our equipment would be shipped back to the studio in Munich with the insurance price we already discussed.”

“Hmmm,” Liesel answered, watching the light _ding_ from floor to floor. She could feel Pieter’s eyes on her, studying her, but she wasn’t prepared to drop her poker face just yet. The elevator slowed and the doors parted to their floor.

“It is far too expensive. You could buy 1,200 chocolate bars, or an exotic animal from Madagascar for the price we’re paying for shipping,” Pieter continued.

“Then we’ll need to do better research next year. Our sound equipment is an investment, but if we continue to travel this far for competitions, we might want to invest in our own storage and transport.”

“Talk about expensive.”

“Do you know how much Worlds just won us, Pieter?” Liesel asked, pulling out her keycard and inserting it into the slot at their shared room. “Just in cash? We’ve not even begun to consider sponsorships.”

“Oh,” Pieter answered, crossing the room to extract their financials file from his black backpack. “I hadn’t considered that.”

Liesel pulled at her hair tie and retreated into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. She turned the faucet on and set to removing her makeup. Through the door, she heard a bit of mumbling, but couldn’t see for the suds.

“What?” she burbled, and spat into the water.

_How attractive._

“I said I was sorry…” she heard more clearly at her side, a white towel appearing within arm’s reach. Pieter handed it over and she dabbed at her face, wiping the residue from her cheeks. Liesel acknowledged the shame-faced man in the bathroom doorway; a bumbling, overlarge puppy in trouble for shattering a vase; a little kid, caught red-handed, fist shoved down in the cookie jar. “For, uhm… getting carried away with the dance, earlier,” he explained, eyes shuttering downward.

“Come now, Pieter,” she chided, smirking absently. “We’re both adults. And we won, did we not?”

“Yes, but I… however—”

“Don’t churn the water that’s passed under the bridge. Let me finish up in here,” she directed, nodding dismissively.

Pieter shrugged and closed the bathroom door, which gave her the brief minute she needed to run her fingers through her tangled hair and strip quickly, brush her teeth, and then apply a bit of Chapstick before she made a really dumb decision.

She’d just won Worlds. She could afford one dumb decision, couldn’t she?

“Pieter?” she called.

“Ja?”

She took a quick breath to calm her nerves, just like she did before she emerged onto the stage, a little tradition before every performance. But this wasn’t really performance. No costume, no make-up, no Kommissar, just _Liesel_ , worked up after a big win and a little smug about the fact that she’d turned one of the most talented guys in Germany into a hormonal ball of mush on a dance floor in front of a hundred people.

Pieter was sitting on his bed, a stack of shipping reports and invoices from the sound equipment spread out beside him. He wasn’t looking at her yet, which allowed her to move a bit closer.

“Take off your pants,” she said.

“Ja, but it looks like a toddler did these sums on this invoice—what?!” Pieter exclaimed, eyes snapping from his paper to her, and then bugging momentarily because she was… sartorially… compromised.

It was one thing to be swept away in a passionate performance; it was something else altogether to be approached by a woman in little more than a slinky hotel robe with… _awe, he gulped, poor thing_ … nothing underneath.

She grinned and continued her determined approach. He tossed the papers over to the side and stood quickly, blinking several times and smacking the side of his head with the flat of his palm.

“And here I thought you were good at following directions,” she teased, placing a hand on his abdomen, running her fingers along the buttons of his black shirt.

“Are you _drunk_ right now, Liesel?!” he asked, slightly manic.

“A lot less drunk than you, probably,” Liesel answered. “In fact, I’m astonishingly sober.”

“I’m sobering up too, which is why I know this is probably a bad idea—”

She yanked him down by his shirt and kissed him hard, spending little time with preliminaries and just going for it, tongue and teeth and lips and circular breathing, until she felt a telling weight pressing against her hip, his hands mapping out a circuitous route between her hair, her neck, her spine, and finally down to grope at her ass, to press her body flush against his own.

“Please, Pieter,” she whispered against his ear, as his hands fumbled with the tie of her robe. “Fuck me.”

He twisted them around so they weren’t facing his document-strewn bed. “So earlier, with the dance…” he asked, her busy fingers working on undoing his buttons. “It wasn’t just me—”

“Of course not.”

He nudged her toward her own bed and kicked off his shoes. The backs of her knees hit the mattress and she collapsed on her bum, watching Pieter yank his shirt from his shoulders and then lean to hover over her, to kiss her neck, her bare shoulder… to pull that damnable robe off of her body while she worked at his belt buckle.

“Liesel—”

“Hmm?” she mumbled, coherency fading as the heat in her abdomen began building with every careful skim of his fingers.

“We’re a pretty good team, ja?” he asked, hands moving south along her naval.

“I think so,” she huffed, forcing his chin up so that she could peck his lips. “We’re really both winners in this, after all.”

 

* * *

 

 

Liesel wakes up before he does, after the first night that they sleep together.

It’s light out, she can tell, an early dawn in Amsterdam; city sounds are coming in through the window and Pieter is snoring lightly behind her. She plays with the hand draped over her and marvels at the tiny calluses built up on his fingertips: from guitars, turntables, pianos and conducting batons. She’d bawled like a baby when the student orchestra in Cologne performed his capstone composition, when they’d gotten to the third movement of the symphony. He’d forgone the rougher _scherzo_ and opted for a more refined _minuet_ , simply titled “Liesel.” She’d taken him out afterwards and had gotten him slap-happy drunk, played the role of best wing-woman in existence, and had slow-clapped his return walk of shame the morning after, saluting him with a knowing smirk and a steaming cup of coffee.

He’d flipped her off and slammed the door on her well-meaning snickers.

But now… it wasn’t like either one of them could do a walk of shame. Maybe Pieter. Two feet to the left and back to his bed.

It wasn’t like there was anything to be ashamed of… they were both adults. Adults who were exceptionally close, that had spent holidays at each other’s family homes, that had seen the other at his or her best, and, more telling, at his or her worst. Maybe not true love, or anything beyond fuck buddies for the moment, undoubtedly partners, comrades— _soul mates,_ if she dared harbor a notion so queasily romantic—but definitely more than a one-night stand in a foreign country.

She feels his fingers curl in her grip, thinks about her toes curling last night. There’s the tell-tell shift behind her, a low, physical stirring in his chest she feels absorbed through her shoulder blades. He stretches and she can feel him behind her, every inch of him, but doesn’t dare break the silence.

“Morning.”

_Dammit Pieter!_

“Good morn,” she says, but doesn’t release his hand.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

She shrugs in response, and fits the pad of her index finger in the big _L_ shape between his thumb and pointer. She traces up and over and allows her finger to dip down, drag over his knuckle, outline the tip of his fingernail and then dip down again, between index and middle finger. It’s calming to her, tracing his hands. The scar above his wrist has almost faded now, from that night he’d been too careless and had singed half of his arm hair off in a rogue candle incident.

“Is something the matter?” he prods again, and she can feel his muscles tense, like he’s ready and prepared to move away.

She holds fast to his hand and kisses his open palm, waiting for a bucket of cold water to douse her from this weird limbo she’s found herself in. Not quite the reality of DSM, not at all like the high of their fucking and dancing last night. Awkward in-between. Some non-space where she doesn’t really feel anything.

“I don’t want to talk,” Liesel says, and rolls over to face him.

He looks back at her quizzically, three furrows in his forehead, eyes sleep-groggy, deep-set and beady, dark and handsome. She places her palm on his cheek and kisses him once, feels his jaw slack beneath her touch.

His whole body relaxes after that tiny bit of affirmation.

“Then we won’t talk, though that might be more difficult for me than for you,” he answers, and places his fingers on her naked hip.

And they don’t talk. They just do an excellent job of breaking nervous eye contact for a few minutes, until Pieter starts playing a little tune on her side. It’s plodding, slow at first, relaxing, and nearly sends her back to sleep in their shared hotel bed. He’s humming along, some soothing lullaby she’s unfamiliar with. But then, he’s tapping with his fingers, pressing chords and strumming along her flesh, digging his knuckle into her side a little more forcefully than he should. He kisses her cheeks quickly, as if that could distract her from the assault on her sides.

It _tickles_ , goddammit, so she’s forced to scrunch her nose up in feigned distaste and retaliate. Her hands skitter over his ribs and look for sensitive spots between the bones. She throws a leg over him and he wiggles beneath her, batting playfully at her hands until they’re giggling, laughing and panting. And she can’t find a sensitive spot because he’s flexing, straining against her fingers so that his abdomen ( _God, has it always had those little rivets of muscle definition!?_ ) absorbs the brunt of her attack. And the tickles soon become less erratic, smoother, not so much jabbing as legato strokes, easing along his stomach and up to his chest. And the giggles aren’t laughs, they’re just deep breaths and an occasional low mumble of satisfaction.

Because she’s straddling him in bed, shirtless, the morning after the night before. And when he reaches for the little wrapper tucked neatly away in his wallet on the bedside table, she doesn’t stop his hand.

Instead, she just leans down to kiss him, and puts off the conversation for another half hour.

 

* * *

 

 

“Holy—”

“Ja,” she says, panting as she rolls off of him.

“You’re… you’re very good at this,” he says, staring up at the ceiling. “Michael Jordan for the Chicago Bulls kind of amazing. 1993 season after the third time they’d won the national championship.”

“Is this your attempt to get in my good graces?”

“I’ve already gotten into your pants. I am less concerned with your good graces, not that you had many to begin with.”

“So you’re just calling me a whore, then?”

“No!!!” he sounds scandalized as he turns to look at her, but the knowing half-smile plastered on her own face makes him huff in faux agitation.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she answers, throwing the covers off of her body and reaching for the discarded robe. “Although, that thing with the leg stretch—”

“Really?” Pieter asks, sitting up against the headboard. “Johanna always said she liked that.”

“She was lying,” Liesel answers, crossing toward the room phone. “No woman likes that.” She hits a series of numbers and waits, turning thoughtfully back to Pieter. “However, the thing with the tongue—oh yes, I’d like to place a room service order.”

She sticks her tongue out and gives Pieter two thumbs up, then proceeds to place a breakfast order, doubling up on egg and bacon portions for Pieter’s sake. She puts the phone back in the cradle, then crosses to sit at the foot of her bed.

“So…” he begins.

“So…” she answers cryptically.

“Time for that talk?” he asks.

“There’s not much to talk about, really. Sex happened. We’re adults. Everything’s fine.”

“If it was fine you’d be more okay talking about it,” Pieter counters, fiddling with the edge of the sheets. “And it wasn’t… I mean, we were both pretty hyped last night. I crushed that DJ like a tiny butterfly between my fingers,” he brags, snapping for emphasis. “Winning Worlds, plus that tango, and I kissed you… and, well, that sex was hotter than oil in a skillet, Liesel. You should go take a look at your neck.”

“ _Scheiße_ , Pieter!" Liesel sprints toward the bathroom to catalog her hickies, cursing him in her head all the while.

“Ja, and you wouldn’t stop shouting that last night, either,” he hollers, the cocky bastard.

“Alright, let’s just… breathe, for a moment,” she says, stepping out from the bathroom. The hickies aren’t nearly as bad as he said, nothing a little stage pancake can’t fix. “We’ve… Pieter, we’ve known each other for so long. We’ve nearly been to bed together more times than I can count. We’re always going to be friends so this… this doesn’t change anything.”

Pieter nods and climbs out of her bed, crosses to his bag and extracts a pair of sweats. As he’s pulling them over his hips, he says: “What if I want it to?”

“What?” she asks.

“What if I want it to change?” he asks again, all joking mannerisms and humorous analogies gone and forgotten. “What if I’d like to pursue something more serious with you?”

“Hell, Pieter, you’re thinking with your dick.”

“That’s so insulting,” he answers, crossing his arms over his chest and staring her down. “We’re about to get some down time from DSM. Why can’t we just… try it? If it starts interfering with work we’ll call it, but… like you said, if it doesn’t work out, we’re still going to be friends. Friends who have the memory of mind-blowing sex to take comfort in.”

“Pieter, we have a really good working relationship. I don’t want to compromise that.”

“I’m not asking you to. You’re still in charge, and I’m still your happy helper. I’ve been with DSM from the beginning too, and I’d never do anything to jeopardize the group.”

“Okay…” she says, pinching the bridge of her nose. Because damn if it wasn't hot sex. And damn if she didn't sometimes sneak a peak when Pieter came out of the shower back home. And damn if she didn't enjoy running ideas by the guy, working with him, talking, hanging out...

“Okay, say… say we do this,” she puts a finger to her chin and thinks, tries to project a ways into the future, to foresee any cons in this situation. “We get a few weeks or months in, seeing each other more… seriously. And if it works out, great. We’ll go public with the group once we reconvene, so it’s not as if we’re keeping anything from them.”

“Some members already have suspicions, Liesel,” Pieter adds. “Our performance last night likely added fuel to those fires.”

“Ja. We might have poured lighter fluid directly on top of it,” she agrees with a wink.

“But once we’re back in Munich…” Pieter lets the question hang, arches his brows up in inquiry.

“We’ll—” Liesel flounders momentarily, casting a careless hand wave into the air before her. “—do dinner, or something.”

“Why don’t I take you out to dinner. Neither one of us cooks very well.”

“I cook _fine_ , you ingrate.”

“You cook well enough. Your baking skills, however… those could use some work,” Pieter teases. “You are no Fanny Homemaker.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m not completely sure,” he admits. “But I’m fascinated by these idiot idioms.”

“I’m going to take a shower,” Liesel says with an eye roll, turning on her heel. “We’ve got a lot to go over before check out.”

“Can I come—?”

“You already get a dinner date in Munich next week, and you’ve had an orgasm or three for your troubles last night. Pay the tab for breakfast and don’t push your luck.”

“Ja, Madame Kommissar!” he fake salutes, plopping down onto his bed with a smile wider than the Reine.

 

* * *

 

Breakfast has arrived by the time she emerges, and Pieter’s already sipping on coffee, half a plate of bacon utterly demolished. He’s got his laptop open and the news on in the background, but his eyes don’t leave the page even as she snatches toast off of his plate.

Must be serious.

“What is it?” she asks, moving to stand behind his shoulder.

“Have you checked our inbox recently?”

“No… what’s SoundLogic? And Audio Centres Europe? And…”

“Companies. Talent agencies. They want…” Pieter’s eyes are flying from sender to sender, the tag lines all congratulating DSM on their recent victory at Worlds. “They want us to do press for them. For… DSM to be the face of their products.”

“You mean sponsorships? _Paid sponsorships_?!” Liesel asks, grin blossoming as she shoves the piece of toast in her mouth. “Wus zis?” she asks through the food.

“This guy?” Pieter clicks on the name. “Talent scout. And this one? He manages some of the _X Factor_ acts; got some in Italy, another in Spain, two in England. This woman is the head of a record label in London. Wants to know if we’d be down for making an a capella EP.”

“Are you serious?” Liesel asks, scrolling through the unread emails that seem to stretch into the hundreds.

“Boyz II Men serious, Liesel.”

“We’re going to have to hire a manager.”

“I know.”

“We’re going to have to increase the travel budget.”

“I know.”

“We’re… Pieter…” Liesel’s eyes are shining, and it’s taking everything in her to keep from squealing like a child, not that Pieter would particularly mind. “We’re going to make a legitimate profit off of this. It’s… it’s actually going to work.”

“And why shouldn’t it?” Pieter asks her, some strange role reversal of assurances taking place. “I always believed you could do it.”

“No, _we_ did it. A team effort, Pieter,” she says happily, swiping a rogue bit of jam from his lip. And because she can’t help it, she kisses him quickly. “It’s all coming together,” she breathes into his mouth.

“It’s exciting,” he smiles back into hers.

“I’m looking forward to it… and to dinner,” she confesses, because everything is falling so perfectly into place. They’d be back in Munich within the next day or so, and then onto world domination on the a capella performance circuit.

And maybe… looking ahead to something a little more stable with her best friend.

She could hardly wait.

* * *

 

 

_One Week Later_

“So it’s a very standard performance contract,” Rudolph slid a thick stack of documents across his desktop. “Rates are set depending on the scale of the venue, and sponsorship deals will go through me, to make sure you’re getting what you’re worth, and then through our marketing department, to make sure they fit in with the characters you’re trying to… portray.”

Pieter and Kommissar were in the main offices of _MelodiSelekT_ , a top talent agency that head-hunted all of the major acts in Europe. DSM had had to postpone their vacation due to the number of offers pouring in; they were set to record the three tracks that got them the international title at Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin the following day. They’d just signed a sponsorship deal with the European division of SHURE, and would be receiving all new equipment as well as a sizable stipend for their troubles. Things were happening at a rapid-fire pace; with every document Liesel signed, she wondered if she was signing away a bit of her power.

“We will still retain complete creative control, ja?” Pieter asked, reading her mind as per usual. “We do not plan to compromise, to… kowtow to the corporate bigwigs.”

“We’re not asking you to,” Rudolph said diplomatically, leaning back in his sleek leather office chair. “Look, you’ve got your gimmick, the black mesh, the vocal gymnastics, it’s a great hook. If you deviate slightly, fine. Marketing can pitch it as a ‘developing stage’ in your artistic careers. As long as you keep winning, you’re golden.”

“And there are no other stipulations placed on our group that your agency is concerned with?” Kommissar narrowed her eyes at the mass of documents. There was no way she was going to sift through all of that nonsense. She’d be bogged down in red tape for days (which she certainly couldn’t afford, given their tight schedule and the grueling pace she planned to set for rehearsals).

“We do have a good behavior clause for all parties that sign with us,” Rudolph explained. “If you’re busted for drugs, your sponsors are going to drop you like lead. So nothing, not even pot.”

“You do not need to worry about that with us,” Kommissar answered.

“She runs a tight ship. Tighter than those sweaty compression shorts you have in your gym bag over there,” Pieter said, casting a dubious glance toward the corner of Rudolph’s office. “Smelly.”

“Anyway,” Rudolph said brusquely, “The rule still stands. If anyone in your group gets arrested, we have the right to drop you. Looks bad for the agency, and bad for the sponsors. No prostitutes on tour buses, no gambling, no rigging or throwing competitions, no fraternizing within the ranks, no skimming off the top of official merchandise—”

“Wait a second,” Pieter said, turning his attention back toward Rudolph. “Fraternizing within the ranks?”

“No personal relationships between members of your performance group,” Rudolph explained.

“No, I got that,” Pieter argued, eyes darting from page to manager and back again, as if the mute document in front of him would give him a counter offer.

“I think what Pieter means—” Kommissar began, steepling her fingers in a measured manner, “—is that relationships in tight-knit performance groups… those form all the time. It will be a hard rule to enforce, especially on the road. And, I would like to say, it is hardly illegal.”

“All valid points, but it’s still a rule our agency, and many others, put in place for our newer acts,” Rudolph said. “If relationships go sour, the band dissolves, and we lose the return on our investment. We don’t care who you date, as long as it’s not each other. Hell, we’re pretty lax on the drug and prostitute thing, as long as it’s not in company buses. Still, rules are rules, and you’ll be fined or worse—dropped—if there are any contractual breaches.”

Pieter and Kommissar threw cautious glances at each other, the heavy black fountain pens in their hands suddenly heavier, shackles and handcuffs on their personal lives. Kommissar could see the pros of such a clause, less internal quarrels in the group, less a chance for emotions to run high when the need for professionalism was paramount, but Liesel—

Liesel had just had one of the best nights of her life with Pieter. With dinner and bad karaoke, an overturned double scull in the river and a misadventure in baking, which had left them covered in flour and fruit filling. And the sex this time was louder and bubblier because they weren’t in a hotel, had agreed to try this thing _for real_ , and they were operating under the assumption that they’d get to be the rock stars of a capella together. Pieter had tasted like berry tart and Liesel was really ready to go for it, until Rudolph came along and said—

“That won’t be an issue for your group, will it? We can hardly do anything about engagements and marriages already in place, but your roster doesn’t list any married couples.”

“One of our basses plans to propose to a fellow member next week,” Pieter chimed in.

Kommissar’s eyes widened infinitesimally, because he certainly couldn’t mean he was—

“Timothy and Alexander, you remember?” Pieter led. “I don’t feel comfortable placing a restriction on that.”

“As I said, anything that’s already in the works will be salvageable, but we can’t afford unnecessary emotional squabbles,” Rudolph reiterated. “Look, your team’s whole selling point is its detached professionalism. This is going to work to your advantage.”

“Just because we forefront precision and perfection does not mean we are emotionless,” Kommissar corrected. “The name of the group is Das Sound Machine, but rest assured, our singers are very much human. It seems… unethical to place such stipulations on their personal lives, operating under nothing more than a hypothetical assumption that their relationships will self destruct.”

“Those are the terms of this agency,” Rudolph said plainly, hands extended in a ‘what can you do?’ sort of gesture. “And of many other agencies willing to sign new, and, forgive me, rather experimental acts like yours. I’m making a big gamble on a capella actually bringing in an audience, let alone a revenue stream. We’re not even charging a full fee since you are your own production team. This…” Rudolph placed his pointer finger at the top of the documents and stared over his spectacles like an irate librarian. “… is the best deal you’ll be offered on the continent. It might hurt a handful, but think of what’s best for your _group_.”

_Well, fuck_.

“Your thoughts?” Kommissar asked Pieter, who was nervously rubbing half of his face.

“Makes sense,” he confessed, dropping his fidgeting hand. “But you know how nonsensical I tend to be. However, with as much work as we have lined up over the next six months, they’ll be no time for us— _anyone_ in DSM to focus much on their personal lives.”

Kommissar nodded once, the little black X at the bottom of the page the biggest cock block she’d ever faced.

“It’s your call, Kommissar,” Pieter said quietly.

Before she could stop herself she signed her stage name in overlarge letters, that giant, inky _K_ judging her in her seat. Pieter signed next, and then Rudolph began the flipping process, pointing out lines and boxes for initials and signatures. And with every stroke of the pen, she felt, for the first time, that she was sacrificing just a little too much to achieve her dreams of stardom.

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey!” Liesel called on the sidewalk, catching Pieter before he departed for the recording studio. She was heading in the opposite direction. She had a meeting with a pair of executives from Sephora, who wanted her for her blue eyes, over-use of black liner, and her choral arrangements. After seeing Pieter’s slitted eyes and menacing jaw line, they’d asked to speak only with the female members of DSM, which Kommissar represented.

“Hey,” Pieter smiled, leaning casually against the bus stop, his hands tucked deep in his pockets.

“I didn’t want to sign it.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Liesel asked pointedly. “It’s just… give us six months. We’ll have a few more titles under our belt, more leverage for negotiations.”

“Liesel,” Pieter said, placing his hands on her shoulders. “It’s alright. You and I both need to focus on setting good examples for the squad, total commitment. If we want to get that leverage, then we need to be flawless as diamonds. So let’s dust off our dancing shoes and get to work.”

“But, well…” Liesel paused, unsure how to phrase the question. “No more tango?”

Pieter laughed, big and booming and too deep to be genuine. And it bugged her to no end that she knew him so well that she could tell.

“No, I don’t think so," Pieter said. "We’ll table this discussion and revisit in six months time.”

“When did you become so procedural?”

“Since I got ten grand in my account after a world title. Efficiency makes bank.”

Pieter grabbed her around the shoulders and pulled her close as his bus arrived. Then, he tilted her chin up and gave her a kiss that definitely wasn’t appropriate, considering they were huddled within the confines of a public bus stop.

Liesel swayed momentarily before regaining her equilibrium.

“Shit,” she breathed, as Pieter departed with a fake salute. “I feel like I’m going off to war.”

“You are!” Pieter hollered at her from the threshold of the bus. “For six months. That kiss has to last me until then. Good luck, mein Kommissar!” he said, and then rolled away in all the grotesque glory of city transport.

Liesel turned away and set her mind into overdrive for future performances. Not much was certain in her personal or professional life at the moment, but she was damn sure she was going to kiss that silly man again, even if it took six months and another European title. And pyrotechnics. And maybe they could add some leather to the routine. And ear mikes, instead of handhelds. She was still supremely pissed that corporate felt the need to insert itself into her group, wondering if there were other clauses Rudolph had conveniently forgotten to mention. The whole situation reminded her of that song by Muse…

They should really work “Uprising” into their repertoire.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I just need to know that other people can see it logically working out on screen for a laugh. It would be weird, but like, a good weird. The next running gag in PP3 would be their blonde haired and blue-eyed children, clad in black leather onesies.


End file.
